More Adolescent Boys Have Eating Disorders. Two Experts Discuss Why.
The medical and scientific understanding of eating disorders is changing and expanding. What happened?Dr. Smith: Historically, eating disorders have been conceptualized mostly as anorexia, which has been portrayed as an illness of adolescent females who want to lose weight for aesthetic reasons.Dr. Nagata: There’s increasing recognition, particularly in the last decade or so, that some people with body image dissatisfaction are not trying to lose weight at all. Some men and boys are trying to become large and muscular. In fact, one-third of teenage boys across the United States report that they’re trying to bulk up and get more muscular.…
